By Shadi Ziaie
Pleasant Hill, California

So I ask him: "What should I write about? Something that gets everyone's attention. No one read the last two fiction pieces I wrote (Stains, Interiors). I thought Iranians were into literature?"

He says Girls. Write about Girls. With a capital G. Girls, Girls, Girls. In different colors and lengths and shapes. Girls with blonde hair. With brown hair (our favorite Persian cats). In red. All these girls. Curvaceous, tall, gorgeous. With red lips and plucked eyebrows. With nail-polished nails and sandals. With see- through blouses and pointy heels. With hip-hugging jeans and tight shirts.

Well. I can't blame you. I myself find girls very attractive. The form and the figure. The way they make themselves pretty. I walk down the street with my significant other and every five minute I point to a different girl for him to look at. Girls. These mothers of tomorrow. Oops, okay, I know. That last sentence ruined the mood. We want to talk about sexy girls without thinking that most of them will in fact be mothers. THAT ruins the picture. (What happened to that pregnant-mother-glow?) And of course something that all men in history have been baffled about. The fact that girls poop. Yes, poop. Like prophets, pretty girls must not poop. It's in the holy books. In history. Addressed to pretty girls: "Thou shall not poop."

If we ponder enough (couple of minutes max) we realize that the only pregnant mother that made it on the cover of a magazine was Demi Moore really. But then she stripteased. (I rest my case.) So far no pretty woman has been seen sitting on a toilet seat. At least not in magazines. We want lean girls like models. Silent. The ones that... well... don't poop. Fat ones only get attention when they act controversial. Rossane for example. She may or may not poop. Nobody cares. They only say things to get attention.

The Madonna types only get a bad rap. In real life Madonnas are whores and hookers and they only talk about poop. Nobody knows if they actually do it or not. And the pretty faces... well... they are just "pretty faces". Only for show off. We don't actually care what they think. As long as we don't have any information about their poop life we're satisfied. I'm not even going to bring up Iranian girls and their toilet habits. That is too controversial even in my book.

The other day me and three other male friends had eaten highly toxic chelo-kabab. We accused each other of having "passed gas" -- I won't use the word they used because according to them it's too vulgar and direct -- in the car. One of them brought up the fact that they would have never suspected me of having done so because I was a girl (especially because I am an Iranian girl). Politically correct, are we? Being girls we can escape embarrassing situations like this. But there are some negative side effects. Like not being heard. Well, being heard but not being listened to. There is a difference.

I can swear that half the time I speak to a male I'm not being listened to. Their mind is either preoccupied with soccer and their bosses at work or with my skirt. It doesn't matter if a girl has some sort of talent or skill as long as she knows how to dress and how to "khar" a man per se (excuse the language of course) with their excessive "eshveh". The more intelligent, the more ignored. Yes, intelligence not only doesn't count but it acts against us because it is seen as a threat to a man's mind. All sorts of problems arise from the outpour of intelligence. And face it, we all have larger than life fragile, delicate, "handle with care" egos.

I made lots of hasty generalizations writing this (I'm aware of it and that is the first step to improvement and change, is it not?). You can accuse me of many different fallacies in argument and also bad writing style. But it's okay. The group that I have directed this to understand and I will hear from them. Let me be politically incorrect for once. After all I AM just a "girl". Have a sense of humor please.